‘What’s Up, Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones’ opens at the Museum of the Moving image in New York, where it will be on display July 19, 2014 through January 19, 2015.
“What’s Up, Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones” is a new traveling exhibition that reveals the creative genius behind some of the most enduringly popular cartoons and animated films of all time. A partnership between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity, and the Museum of the Moving Image, the exhibit begins its first stop at the Museum of the Moving image in New York, where it will be on display July 19, 2014 through January 19, 2015.
What’s Up, Doc? examines Jones’ development as a filmmaker and visual artist and showcases many of his most significant films, which come to life on screens throughout the exhibition. Chuck Jones brought to animation an unparalleled talent for comic invention and a flair for creating animated characters with distinctive and often wildly eccentric personalities. Jones perfected the quintessentially suave and wisecracking Bugs Bunny, the perpetually exasperated Daffy Duck, the hapless but optimistic Elmer Fudd, and created the incurably romantic Pepé Le Pew, and the eternal antagonists Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.
Most famous for his iconic work in the 1940s and 1950s at Warner Brothers’ legendary cartoon studio, his career continued long after his association with Warner Bros. ended in 1962. Later projects include his feature film The Phantom Tollbooth, the Academy Award winning short The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics, and such popular television specials as How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Horton Hears a Who.
What’s Up, Doc? includes the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies classic films What’s Opera, Doc? and One Froggy Evening as well as masterpieces like The Dot and the Line, which expanded the boundaries of the medium with its experimental animation techniques. Wall-projected animated films provide the visual and contextual centerpiece of the exhibition. Original sketches, storyboards, animation cels, photographs, audio-visuals, and interactive experiences offer insight into how Jones and his collaborators worked together to create cinematic magic. What’s Up, Doc? explores the influences—and the legacy—of Chuck Jones, and demonstrates the indelible mark he left on the field of animation and the art of filmmaking.
Source: Chuck Jones Center for Creativity
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
